Make Your Own Posters
Posters
Two years ago, I used architect prints (also know as engineering prints) to decorate my sons leaving party. They are a very effective and astonishingly cheap way to decorate for a large space. I was asked to do the same for Abbis leavers party a few weeks ago.
To make your own posters, you need high resolution images (at least 1-2MB – but higher is better), a selection of quotes cheesy or otherwise) and photo manipulation software. Photoshop is obviously the best known software, but I use pixelamator (It is considerably cheaper, and unless you are a professional, will cover pretty much anything you want to be able to do). Make sure you ask for the pictures to be printed onto Engineering or plan paper, as this keeps the cost at £2-3 rather than around £12-£15
The posters I made were mainly black and white A0 size (humungous) – but I did one in colour.
This was intended to be an entrance banner outside the school (but I ran out of time). Never mind. It was a big hit with the kids anyway. I took a photos of all the kids, and removed the background. Then I over layed hats, wigs, moustaches etc.
The Method
Here is a quick infographic of the rough stages involved:
1. Select high resolution file. 2. Crop to fit print size ratio (set pixelmator canvas to the print dimension ratio) and drag the file in, cropping as required. 3. Use the eraser and magic eraser tools to remove the background. 4. Once all the background is complete you will have a .png file 5. Add embellishments a separate layer at a time, to prevent over riding the base layer. 6. Group the layers 7. Add text, and export for printing.
Using the same process, with pixelmator to resize and add text, I made these posters:
The Posters
“People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to change the world” Anne Frank
“However difficult life me seem there is always something you can do and succeed at” Stephen Hawking
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Mahatma Gandhi 
“Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow.” Albert Einstein
“Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” Maya Angelou
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.” Henry David Thoreau
“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” AA Milne
“Challenges make life interesting. Overcoming them makes life meaningful.” Joshua J Marine
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, perseverence and learning from failure.” Colin Powell
It always seems impossible until it is done.” Nelson Mandela
Let us make our dreams tomorrows reality.” Malala Yousafzai
I was getting a little carried away by this stage…. These were the signs on the toilet doors: Boys
And no prizes for guessing: Girls
And here they are in the marquee. Apologies for the yellowy light – camera skills need some work. 
And more…
In all I had around 15 posters up. These In situ pictures don’t really do them justice. Its a great cost effective way to decorate a large space for a children party, anniversary, etc.
